Thursday, November 23, 2006

Ashton: Bourbons all round

There was big news for West Ham this week, when our much talked about takeover went through. The Icelandic businessman Eggert Magnusson is now our new owner and from what I can see, it can only be good for the club. I've heard he is a good guy and he has the interests of the club at heart, which is the main thing. I don’t know a great deal about him or the takeover though, so it's a bit hard for me to go into it much further.

The takeover is something us players do talk about. But we only talk about things like that in as far as wondering when or if they will happen. We don’t worry about it though – it's the business side of football. It will have an effect on the players though; everyone will have to be on their toes, and perform at their best, because obviously the new owner is going to make funds available for January. So we have to be aware that replacements could come in.

One thing I do know about the new chairman is how he made his money, he's a biscuit baron! When I heard that I was overjoyed, and I thought "Yes! Bourbons all round." You may or may not know this, but I have got a bit of a superstition about eating biscuits the night before a game.

I don’t really know where it came from; I think it must have started when I began travelling to away games. In the hotels they always have those little packets of biscuits, and I started having a couple before the game. I always seemed to do well so I carried it on, and it stuck.

When I come back from my injury maybe the chairman will be able to sort me out with a supply, he could well be the perfect chairman. I won't get a goal bonus like everyone else; I can get a biscuit bonus. There doesn’t have to be any money for me, just biscuits! Bourbons are my favourite by the way…

On the subject of coming back, my ankle has got to the stage now where it's kind of plateaued off a bit. It seemed like I was making lots of progress last week, but it has levelled out now.

This is the time for working really hard. I am building my calf muscle back up and trying to get the strength back, that’s going to take a few weeks, so it's quite tough. I try and mix it up as much as I can though, because it does get boring, but I am doing new things all the time. Now I am able to skip, hop, jump and things like that. I'm just trying to get that last couple of degrees of stiffness out of my ankle, which is my main aim at the moment.

The weekend's game will be an important one for the boys; they will be facing Sheffield United who are in the bottom three. It's probably not going to be the prettiest of games but it's one we have to win, so I'm sure the team will go out and put in a good display. If they play anywhere near as good as they did against Chelsea, they'll do well.

December is going to be busy month so it'd be nice to set themselves up for it with a win. The Christmas period is going to tell a lot about who is going to stay down the bottom, and hopefully it isn’t going to be us.

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